Rabid Cougar said:

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LMCane said:

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you were old enough to work for NPS in the early 1980s but have also been to the Highway of Death in Kuwait in 1992 and to Afghanistan?

when were you in Afghanistan?

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Yep. NPS in my early '20's and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers working with Provincial Reconstruction Teams ( Army in Iraq and Navy in the 'stan) in my late 40's.

Traveled over the actual Highway of Death in 2007. Did all the Iraq stuff in '07,'08 (Basra and Camp Bucca) and '09 (Talil) and then did Afghanistan in '11. (FOB Wright (Abad) in the Kunar). My job took me outside the wire 4-5 days a week so I got to see lots of countryside and meet lots of the locals... both good and bad...

It was a blast working with the Aegis Security guys ( all ex Brit-Mil) in Iraq and the Army SecFor guys ( Mass. National Guard) and ODAs in Afghanistan.

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you have had quite the life my friend!

Where is that Pea Ridge Battlefield?

one safe place said:

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LMCane said:

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wow - how the @#$#@$ did you end up in Tarawa?!

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My dad fought and was wounded there. He was a member of K/3/2 and became one of "Ryan's Orphans" (Major Ryan who commanded L/3/2) as things fell apart that morning. Few of his platoon survived and were transferred over to L/3/2 after Tarawa. I had no idea the island was even inhabited nor that there was a way to access it. Sure wish I had known when my dad was alive, I would have taken him if he wanted to go, which he probably would not have wanted to.

I came across a tour company that listed many tours including a week in Tarawa. So, I went for the 72nd anniversary and again for the 75th anniversary. Walked in on Red Beach 1 where he landed, killed the first Japanese he killed, I got to meet the archaeologists who are still finding the remains of Marines and, eventually, getting them identified in Hawaii and returned home. A few years beforehand, and years after my dad died, I had gotten in touch with some of the guys in his platoon and one asked if I had a certain book about Tarawa which was out of print. This guy was in his squad in fact. I did, he asked if he could read it, so I mailed it to him. He mailed it back and had marked on maps and pictures in the book where they were on day 1, day 2, and such. I was pretty much able to follow the path he took.

There is another tour planned for this November, the 80th anniversary, but you have to have a covid shot to go and so I suppose I have been for the last time. The tour guide is the grandson of Sandy Bonnyman who was one of the four Medal of Honor recipients. His remains were found a few years ago.

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wow that's an amazing story- you should write a book about it.

My grandfather was a Co-Pilot of a B-24 over Yugoslavia flying out of the 15th Air Force in Foggia Italy.

I found the unit and one of the survivors sent me a lot of photographs of the unit and my grandfather in Training (I think Texas or Oklahoma) and then in Italy.

shot down on a mission and had to escape from the Nazis, and we are Jewish so that must have been insane. I only had some contact with him at the end of his life and he didn't really want to talk about it- he even gave away all his medals!!

so that sucks.

LMCane said:

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one safe place said:

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LMCane said:

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wow - how the @#$#@$ did you end up in Tarawa?!

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My dad fought and was wounded there. He was a member of K/3/2 and became one of "Ryan's Orphans" (Major Ryan who commanded L/3/2) as things fell apart that morning. Few of his platoon survived and were transferred over to L/3/2 after Tarawa. I had no idea the island was even inhabited nor that there was a way to access it. Sure wish I had known when my dad was alive, I would have taken him if he wanted to go, which he probably would not have wanted to.

I came across a tour company that listed many tours including a week in Tarawa. So, I went for the 72nd anniversary and again for the 75th anniversary. Walked in on Red Beach 1 where he landed, killed the first Japanese he killed, I got to meet the archaeologists who are still finding the remains of Marines and, eventually, getting them identified in Hawaii and returned home. A few years beforehand, and years after my dad died, I had gotten in touch with some of the guys in his platoon and one asked if I had a certain book about Tarawa which was out of print. This guy was in his squad in fact. I did, he asked if he could read it, so I mailed it to him. He mailed it back and had marked on maps and pictures in the book where they were on day 1, day 2, and such. I was pretty much able to follow the path he took.

There is another tour planned for this November, the 80th anniversary, but you have to have a covid shot to go and so I suppose I have been for the last time. The tour guide is the grandson of Sandy Bonnyman who was one of the four Medal of Honor recipients. His remains were found a few years ago.

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wow that's an amazing story- you should write a book about it.

My grandfather was a Co-Pilot of a B-24 over Yugoslavia flying out of the 15th Air Force in Foggia Italy.

I found the unit and one of the survivors sent me a lot of photographs of the unit and my grandfather in Training (I think Texas or Oklahoma) and then in Italy.

shot down on a mission and had to escape from the Nazis, and we are Jewish so that must have been insane. I only had some contact with him at the end of his life and he didn't really want to talk about it- he even gave away all his medals!!

so that sucks.

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I am writing a book that includes his service in WWII and his dad's service in WWI (I never knew any of my grandparents). It is a book of those stories and of family stories since I am now the highest branch on the family tree, lol. Writing it with no intention to publish it, just bind it and give it to my brother and cousins and children and grandchildren. When I die, the stories die.

I was surprised the number of photographs my dad had, he just never seemed the type, and he seldom talked about the war. He had one picture from New Zealand at a dance/party and it has maybe 45 Marines, and lots of Kiwi girls, having the time of their lives. If you look closely, on the faces or uniforms of something like 23 or 25 of the Marines, he drew an X on them and on the back he wrote "These are some of the men killed on Tawara." Hard to wrap my head around that and every time I pick that picture up, I think about losing that many guys.

Through a group dedicated to finding and returning Marines on Tawara, I think 7 or 8 of those in the picture have been matched to their names. We know from his service records they are part of 3/2 (Betio *******s) and K company which helped with the identification.

As to your grandfather, I cannot imagine even getting in one of the WWII bombers, much less being shot down and surviving that. Then to be Jewish and having to escape the Nazis would be the most fearful situation ever. Like your grandfather, my dad would seldom talk about the war, and never about the fighting, at least not to me. We had a neighbor who fought in Europe and he and my dad would talk about their action. When I was a young boy I would hide under the pool table and listen. This would have been only 14 or 15 years after they were fighting.

One guy in his platoon sent me the map they were given of Tarawa and a ten yen note that he and my dad and the rest of their squad had all signed.

Lexington
Concord
Bunker Hill
Alamo
San Jacinto
Vicksburg
Petersburg
Appomattox

LMCane said:

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Where is that Pea Ridge Battlefield?

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Northwest Arkansas close to Fayetteville.

Vicksburg
Little Bighorn
Alamo
Berlin
Dresden
Eagle's Nest
Pearl Harbor
Mobile Bay
Ft. Pulaski
Lookout Mountain
Missionary Ridge
Souda Bay

aalan94 said:

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Great idea for a thread. I'm going to add photos where I can.

U.S.: Bull Run/Manassas, Gettysburg, Yorktown.


Texas: The Alamo, Coletto Creek Battlefield, Seige of La Bahia (1813)/Goliad Massacre (1836), Battle of Arroyo Hondo, San Jacinto.
Me at Coleto Creek


Europe: First of all, damn near every city was a battlefield at some point, if only from the air. Not counting that, though I've been to dozens.

Waterloo. When I was a free-lance journalists in Europe in the late 1990s, I was killing time and stopped by. This is the big monument, which is awesome and has a lion on top. From up there, you can see everything. The second pic is Napoleon's Center.



Bastogne. Same trip. Highlight was meeting an American soldier whose wife had died and so he just moved to Bastogne to live out his last year and then die and be buried with his comrades. Really interesting character. I interviewed him but never wrote an article. I should find out what happened to him.


Normandy. Visited during my leave from Iraq. Went from having not seen a blade of grass for six months to a very green and cold French countryside. Pointe du Hoc, where Rudder's men landed:

More Point du Hoc, including craters from bombing. No, the bombers didn't miss it, the Germans were just dug in.



Omaha beach, with my footprints from my Iraq combat boots:


St. Mere Eglise


What's left of the Mulberries.


Various other Normandy pics.


Asia:
Corregidor. Obviously, if your ship sails into Manilla and you get a couple of days ashore, you do this.







Guam:



Singapore: The "Battlebox" is a museum of the Battle of Singapore. It's really the "Surrender Museum" - the bunker where the British realized that their empire was toast. For what little the Singaporeans had to work with, it's decently done, although depressing for anyone other than Japanese tourists, who probably leave with giant grins.




Hiroshima (Not too many Japanese smile in this museum) :

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Great pictures! Thanks.

More, please! Best topicin years!

Somewhere, I have photos from my visits to Normady and Huertgen.

But that was back in the days of film, and there have been many PCS moves since then. I'm going to need to do some digging.

Texas
-Alamo
-Goliad
-San Jacinto
-Palo Alto (Mexican American War)

Louisiana
-Chalmette

Mississippi
-Vicksburg

Tennessee
-Shiloh
-Stones River
-Carter House (Battle of Franklin)
-Lookout Mountain
-Missionary Ridge
-Chickamauaga

Georgia
-Resaca
-Ringold
-Kennesaw Mountain

Virginia
-Tredegar Iron Works (not really a battlefield)
-Gaines Mill
-Cold Harbor
-Malvern Hill
-Chancellorsville
-Spotsylvania
-Fredericksburg
-Gettysburg
-Harpers Ferry (West Virginia)
-Appomattox Courthouse

I would think you have been to Princeton and Monmouth in New Jersey which were pretty important battles in 1777 and 1778.

Washington's Crossing is awesome there is still a little village of Colonial homes there and the boats that took the men across the frozen Delaware.

I'm planning on retiring early in 2026 and taking a year to write a book about the European war of July 1944 so travel from Normandy to Ukraine.

Chalmette is the battlefield outside New Orleans correct where there is one main line of American trenches and they knocked the @#$#@ out of the advancing redcoats along the river?

if so I was there- passing through the Wards of New Orleans to get there was unbelievable the poverty and destruction of the ghettoes. unbelievable

and on the topic of New Orleans- the World War Two museum there is amazingly good

better than the Smithsonian in DC

for the hardcore guys- the USMC museum at Quantico is awesome- they redid the entire thing a few years ago. you can see the Iwo Jima statue for miles and inside are all the battles of the Marines.

No one has mentioned Third Winchester and Cedar Creek in the Shenandoah- under rated!!

Snap. I forgot about doing a living history on the Port Republic Battlefield on the Shenandoah. Absolutely beautiful area. Drove past so many others, just not able to stop.

LMCane, you are correct about Chalmette. The drive over there is eye opening.

And the WWII museum is amazing everytime I've been. Kind of like the museum of the Pacific in Fredericksburg, it just gets better!

one safe place said:

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LMCane said:

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one safe place said:

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LMCane said:

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wow - how the @#$#@$ did you end up in Tarawa?!

---

My dad fought and was wounded there. He was a member of K/3/2 and became one of "Ryan's Orphans" (Major Ryan who commanded L/3/2) as things fell apart that morning. Few of his platoon survived and were transferred over to L/3/2 after Tarawa. I had no idea the island was even inhabited nor that there was a way to access it. Sure wish I had known when my dad was alive, I would have taken him if he wanted to go, which he probably would not have wanted to.

I came across a tour company that listed many tours including a week in Tarawa. So, I went for the 72nd anniversary and again for the 75th anniversary. Walked in on Red Beach 1 where he landed, killed the first Japanese he killed, I got to meet the archaeologists who are still finding the remains of Marines and, eventually, getting them identified in Hawaii and returned home. A few years beforehand, and years after my dad died, I had gotten in touch with some of the guys in his platoon and one asked if I had a certain book about Tarawa which was out of print. This guy was in his squad in fact. I did, he asked if he could read it, so I mailed it to him. He mailed it back and had marked on maps and pictures in the book where they were on day 1, day 2, and such. I was pretty much able to follow the path he took.

There is another tour planned for this November, the 80th anniversary, but you have to have a covid shot to go and so I suppose I have been for the last time. The tour guide is the grandson of Sandy Bonnyman who was one of the four Medal of Honor recipients. His remains were found a few years ago.

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wow that's an amazing story- you should write a book about it.

My grandfather was a Co-Pilot of a B-24 over Yugoslavia flying out of the 15th Air Force in Foggia Italy.

I found the unit and one of the survivors sent me a lot of photographs of the unit and my grandfather in Training (I think Texas or Oklahoma) and then in Italy.

shot down on a mission and had to escape from the Nazis, and we are Jewish so that must have been insane. I only had some contact with him at the end of his life and he didn't really want to talk about it- he even gave away all his medals!!

so that sucks.

---

I am writing a book that includes his service in WWII and his dad's service in WWI (I never knew any of my grandparents). It is a book of those stories and of family stories since I am now the highest branch on the family tree, lol. Writing it with no intention to publish it, just bind it and give it to my brother and cousins and children and grandchildren. When I die, the stories die.

I was surprised the number of photographs my dad had, he just never seemed the type, and he seldom talked about the war. He had one picture from New Zealand at a dance/party and it has maybe 45 Marines, and lots of Kiwi girls, having the time of their lives. If you look closely, on the faces or uniforms of something like 23 or 25 of the Marines, he drew an X on them and on the back he wrote "These are some of the men killed on Tawara." Hard to wrap my head around that and every time I pick that picture up, I think about losing that many guys.

Through a group dedicated to finding and returning Marines on Tawara, I think 7 or 8 of those in the picture have been matched to their names. We know from his service records they are part of 3/2 (Betio *******s) and K company which helped with the identification.

As to your grandfather, I cannot imagine even getting in one of the WWII bombers, much less being shot down and surviving that. Then to be Jewish and having to escape the Nazis would be the most fearful situation ever. Like your grandfather, my dad would seldom talk about the war, and never about the fighting, at least not to me. We had a neighbor who fought in Europe and he and my dad would talk about their action. When I was a young boy I would hide under the pool table and listen. This would have been only 14 or 15 years after they were fighting.

One guy in his platoon sent me the map they were given of Tarawa and a ten yen note that he and my dad and the rest of their squad had all signed.

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Amazing!
at least publish your book online at a Tarawa unit memorial site and send us all the link to read

FIDO_Ags said:

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LMCane, you are correct about Chalmette. The drive over there is eye opening.

And the WWII museum is amazing everytime I've been. Kind of like the museum of the Pacific in Fredericksburg, it just gets better!

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This site is really nostalgic as I grew up in Round Rock and Austin and I know that we went to the Fredericksburg Texas museum and the Chester Nimitz museum, and the Battleship Texas and San Jacinto. When I must have been 14 or 15.

I'm 52 now so that sucks.

It's also funny that after living in the DC area for 25 years off and on that "Fredericksburg" to me is the battle of December 1862 right off of I-95 heading south to Richmond!

I have been to almost every Civil War site east of the Missisiippi now that I got to Vicksburg in August 2020. But only Murfreesboro in Tennessee and none really in Georgia other than Stone Mountain outside Atlanta.

at Spotsylvania Court House you can jump down into the actual trenches of the "Mule Shoe"

JABQ04 said:

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Snap. I forgot about doing a living history on the Port Republic Battlefield on the Shenandoah. Absolutely beautiful area. Drove past so many others, just not able to stop.

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I actually have never been there LOL

even though I have been writing a book on Third Winchester for more than two years and drove down through the Shenandoah stopping at every university archive in Virginia and North Carolina since 2021.

There's actually a place called "Bridgewater College" in the southern Shenandoah "Up the Valley" which had one of the best archives on the Civil War that I have seen!

obviously I spent a ton of time in Winchester at their archives which are quite impressive. I have made it to over 40 museums, archives, military museums, US Army War College in PA, and battlefields doing research.

NE PA Ag said:

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This is a great thread. Aside from some mentioned on here many times already, a couple of interesting ones for me that haven't been mentioned already:

Fort William Henry in Lake George, NY, of Last of the Mohicans fame (French siege on British fort during French and Indian War, Huron Massacre)

Minisink NY - Revolutionary War battlefield on the banks of the Delaware between NY and PA. It's about 18 miles from my home. British and their Iroquois Confederacy allies routed NY and PA militiamen.

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Wow never heard of those.

I spent two very cold years in Bucks County working at the now shut down Lockheed Martin Space campus in Newtown. So that is when I saw all the New Jersey battlefields and Washingtons Crossing north of Langhorne (best philly pretzels in the world!)

I have been to Fort Ticonderoga when I lived in Hartford CT and drove up to Montreal- that is an awesome place.

Have always wanted to get to Saratoga and the US Military Academy at West Point those are on the bucket list someday.

I have been to USAFA at Colorado Springs and to USNA in Annapolis- I spend alot of weekends walking around campus and there is a great 40 minute boat service along the Chesapeake.

Noblemen06 said:

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One of the thrills of life in the Air Force has been traveling the world and taking advantage of learning about all the places I've been; especially their military history. I'm currently in northern Virginia and have a fixation on the Civil War, so battlefields are an easy weekend-filler.

One of my most treasured historical battlefield experiences was catching a ride on a KC-135 from Kadena Air Base to spend the day at Iwo Jima. The island is somewhat frozen in time, as it only maintains a small presence of Japanese Self Defense Force personnel on one airfield. Therefore, as you make your way around, there are still numerous WWII artifacts right where they were during that terrible battle.

Hiking up from the waterline gives you a surreal sense of how hellish it was for the Marines to land on the island. Your boots sink into the sand and reaching every crest in front of you just reveals another terraced ascent ahead. The Japanese had emplacements, pillboxes, and hidden positions everywhere. On one hand, the battle is made tangible and sobering when you walk the ground, on the other, it is beautifully serene with no one there.

From the beach:

From the top of Mount Suribachi:

Mandatory "Gig 'Em"

A naval gun that General Kuribayashi had positioned as an artillery piece on the north side of Suribachi:

Machine gun in a pillbox:


One of the tunnels - these were super tight, roach filled, and DARK. There is still IJA materiel throughout the tunnels, which you are directed not to touch (or pilfer, of course). Also, unlike most caves I've been it, it is warm to hot in the tunnels (understandably, since it is a volcano).

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Outstanding!

I was a 14N3 Captain with the JRIU at the Pentagon way back 2006-2010.

Great thread and photos. Thanks to all. I used to live on 5 acres near Chancellorsville in Fredericksburg, VA. Heavily wooded. My biggest regret was not getting a metal detector out on my property in the 6 years I lived there. I would have found stuff like buttons, bullets, etc.

scd88 said:

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Great thread and photos. Thanks to all. I used to live on 5 acres near Chancellorsville in Fredericksburg, VA. Heavily wooded. My biggest regret was not getting a metal detector out on my property in the 6 years I lived there. I would have found stuff like buttons, bullets, etc.

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You're welcome.

And since I have been to Fredericksburg so many times...

scd88 said:

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Great thread and photos. Thanks to all. I used to live on 5 acres near Chancellorsville in Fredericksburg, VA. Heavily wooded. My biggest regret was not getting a metal detector out on my property in the 6 years I lived there. I would have found stuff like buttons, bullets, etc.

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On top of Marye's Heights at Fredericksburg December 1862.

scd88 said:

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Great thread and photos. Thanks to all. I used to live on 5 acres near Chancellorsville in Fredericksburg, VA. Heavily wooded. My biggest regret was not getting a metal detector out on my property in the 6 years I lived there. I would have found stuff like buttons, bullets, etc.

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Innis House, Fredericksburg National Battlefield

scd88 said:

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Great thread and photos. Thanks to all. I used to live on 5 acres near Chancellorsville in Fredericksburg, VA. Heavily wooded. My biggest regret was not getting a metal detector out on my property in the 6 years I lived there. I would have found stuff like buttons, bullets, etc.

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Field of Battle, Fredericksburg

My list is:
Pea Ridge saw the reenactment
Chattanooga toured
Vicksburg toured
Bull Runs toured
New Market went to this one as an exchange cadet to VMI

Unfortunately I did not have a camera when I went to any of these and most were when I was a kid.

The most creeped out I've ever been was at Vicksburg. We were there pretty late and there were not many people around and the feeling of desperate panic was all around. I don't know how to explain it.

Great photos that bring back some fond memories of taking my kids to these places. Thanks for sharing.

ANTIETAM

bloodiest day of the Civil War
this is the William McKinley statue- he would go on to become a staff officer at Third Winchester and President of the USA 1897-1901